Critics have complained recently that bank regulators and the Justice Department have been overstepping their legal authority and acting like moral police. American Banker staffers discuss what's behind the charges and whether they stand up to scrutiny.

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) Chief Executive Officer Ed Clark will get a lifetime annual pension of C$2.49 million ($2.23 million) after stepping down as head of Canada's largest lender by assets.

CenterState Banks (CSFL) in Davenport, Fla., has appointed Ed Kofman to head its loan trading and hedge desk as managing director.

Two Florida men have been sentenced to serve seven years in federal prison for swindling more than $4 million from borrowers who were behind on their mortgages.

Mercantile Bank (MBWM) in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Firstbank (FBMI) in Alma, Mich., are extending the termination date for their delayed merger.

Union State Bank in Arkansas City, Kan., has had a member of the Docking family at its helm for more than 50 years. That is about to change.

U.S. banks are seeking to shield from scrutiny the $30 billion they collect annually in checking-account fees, saying a proposed requirement for periodic reports is unacceptable even if it exempts small institutions.

The highway to higher bank profits is littered with dead banks and S&Ls. Don’t be surprised to discover a few more casualties along the highway if and when long-term fixed-rate lending really takes off.

Park Sterling (PSTB) in Charlotte, N.C., has added to its recently established team in Virginia.

A federal judge ordered the arrest and incarceration of Paul Navestad, known legally as Paul Richard Jones, for violating an April 2012 court order requiring him to pay more than $20 million for his role in a phony government grant scheme.

JPMorgan Chase recovered only $593 million in charged-off credit card debts in 2013 - a slump of 57% from three years earlier. The drop reflects the improving economy and the regulatory pressures facing JPMorgan and other big banks over their collection practices.

Jamie Dimon, who survived a shareholder proposal in 2013 to split his chairman and chief executive officer roles atop JPMorgan Chase (JPM), won't face the same threat this year.

Silicon Valley Bank and MasterCard Inc. launched the Commerce.Innovated. accelerator to find and nurture innovators in payments technology.

Citigroup Inc. (C), the third-largest U.S. bank, gave Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat a 25 percent pay raise to about $14.4 million for 2013, his first full year running the firm.

Enterprise Financial Services (EFSC) in Clayton, Mo., has promoted an executive to lead its commercial banking efforts.

Guernsey Bancorp in Westerville, Ohio, has terminated an agreement to buy Ohio State Bank in Marion.

Umpqua Holdings and Sterling Financial are paying Banner $7 million to take the branches. Though negative bids are uncommon in healthy bank deals, it seems like a small price to get regulators to bless a $2 billion merger.

An industry leader discusses advances in collections methodologies - including the creation of effective collections infrastructure, innovations in the field and the major factors driving change in collections strategies.

Once written off as an endangered species, nonbank home lenders are making a comeback in the third-party origination businesses abandoned by banks since the financial crisis.

Experian Automotive announced Thursday that consumers continued to make their loan payments on time in Q4 2013. Automotive loan 30-day delinquencies were down 3.5 percent (going from 2.72 percent in Q4 2012 to 2.63 percent in Q4 2013), and 60-day delinquencies remained flat at 0.74 percent.